


Aftermath

by Butterfly_Truths



Series: In Search of Home [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, F/M, amelia's not handling things well, art's in there too, matthew doesn't know what to do, sao inspired this, sort of, this trope is so overdone but idc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 07:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11099442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly_Truths/pseuds/Butterfly_Truths
Summary: It's been months since the death game ended, but it continues to haunt her as she struggles to readjust.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> So I've actually had this stuck in my head ever since I finished watching sao and it took a few months of it constantly haunting me before I was like fuck it and wrote this down.
> 
> And since this is technically like an epilogue (why I wrote it like this I have nooo idea but my brain is weird so I just roll with it) I should probably give you guys some background so you have some idea of what's happening.
> 
> So basically this is sao take two with hetalia. The sao that we all know and love happened about ten years back and the current company that has taken over all of the sao databases released a limited edition anniversary sao game that promised new features and bosses with one of its biggest things being that the servers were all linked together so it could handle more players from around the world all playing together.
> 
> 30,000 copies were released worldwide and since this is sao everything quickly went to hell in a handbasket. It took three years for them to beat the game and only around 12,000 made it out alive.
> 
> A few months after this is were we currently find Amelia who is still struggling to readjust to the real world. 
> 
> And with that read on.

She doesn’t recognize the stars anymore.

When she was little she’d sit outside in the backyard with Matthew and point out the constellations to him. _Look there’s the Little Dipper, and if you follow the tip of the handle you’ll find the Big Dipper!_ With each one she’d recall the story attached to it and paint the night sky with legends of old, and tucked underneath the blanket with her Matthew would hang off her every word. Those moments made up some of her fondest memories, collected together and held up on a pedestal where she thought nothing could touch them and taint them.

But she can feel that pedestal crumbling as she sits beside Matthew and listens to him talk. _Look Amelia, there’s Delphinus over there._ And he looks at her, waiting for her to jump in like she used to when they were younger, but she can’t because she doesn’t remember Delphinus’ story. Doesn’t remember any of their stories. She tries to follow Matthew’s finger to where he’s pointing but all she sees are the stars scattered across the night sky. There is nothing in this foreign sky that she recognizes anymore.

“If you say so,” she tells him quietly and she watches the way his face starts to fall, the excited glimmer in his eyes dulling, before he hides it away.

“It’s okay, that one’s hard to see anyways. Um, oh, I know! What about the Big Dipper?” She can feel his gaze on her as she looks away and up towards the sky and her fingers tighten around the blanket draped over her lap. A part of her wants to scream at him, to beg him to stop this, _I’m not the same person you used to know I can never go back_. It’s painful to see him like this, to watch him grasp at straws, to try and find something that he can hold on to and say _yes there you are_. But she also can’t find it in herself to deny him either because she was the one who put him through the agony of wondering if she’d ever wake up again.

She really does try this time to find the constellation. “Um, it’s over there, right?” He tries to smile at her but it never reaches his eyes and Amelia knows that she’s guessed wrong again.

“How about we call it a night, eh?”

* * *

_“You know it’s strange.”_

_Amelia nuzzles against his chest, tilting her head up just enough that she can see him. She’ll never tell him, but Albion is beautiful like this, drenched in moonlight that turns his hair silver and makes his skin glow ever so slightly. He looks like some sort of ethereal being that had fallen from the very stars above them. She’s half afraid that if she closes her eyes that he’ll spread his wings and disappear._

_“What’s strange?” she whispers. Her toes curl at the sensation of Albion combing his fingers through her hair. His head is tilted back, resting lightly against the tree trunk, looking out at the night sky above them._

_“When I look up there, I just get this feeling that I’ve known this sky my whole life.” He glances down at her and she can just make out the faint smattering of freckles across his nose. His lips curl slightly at the ends into a small smile and Amelia can’t help but respond in kind. “That doesn’t sound crazy does it?”_

_Amelia shakes her head. “No, I get it.” Her gaze travels upwards, admiring the thousands of twinkling lights. She picks out the constellations one by one, dozens of them all wrapped around each other.“I feel the same way. Sometimes it feels like the real world was just some sort of weird dream and that this world is our real one. It feels like I’ve spent my whole life here.”_

_She reaches beneath the blanket and pulls the hand not tucked securely around her waist out, tangling their fingers together. “Even though we’re all just a bunch of ones and zeroes in here, your hand is warm. It feels real.”_

_She feels Albion squeeze her hand gently. Her eyes flutter shut at the sensation of his lips pressed against her forehead. And in that moment everything is perfect and she doesn’t want it to ever end. Beneath the stars, tucked away in this little place they’ve learned to call home, Amelia whispers the secret she’s been keeping buried deep in her chest into the soft cotton of her partner’s shirt._

_“Even if this is a dream, I never want to wake up.”_

She doesn’t think that she’s made any noise, yet somehow Matthew comes bursting through the door, scooping her up into his arms just in time for Amelia to bury her head into his shoulder and release the next broken sob choking her lungs.

“Hey, hey it’s alright, it’s alright,” he soothes. He rubs small circles into her back. “Was it a nightmare?”

She shakes her head, smearing her tears all over Matthew’s shoulder. She wishes it was. God it would make everything so much easier if it was.

“What’s wrong then?” It’s a valid question. Normally good dreams don’t cause people to start crying. But she stays quiet. Because she can’t tell him, he wouldn’t, couldn’t, understand. Because it would terrify him. It would make him look at again like he did in those first few weeks when she was trying to readjust and he walked on eggshells around her.

Because it terrifies her a little too.

Thankfully he doesn’t pursue the topic, just continues to hold her and rub circles against her spine and comfort her the only ways he knows how to. After a few minutes she’s mostly calm again, enough anyways that Matthew pulls away slightly.

He tucks a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah,” she lies, her voice hoarse and gravelly from having cried so hard. A few stray tears slip down her cheeks. It obvious from the worry pinching his face and the concern in his eyes that Matthew doesn’t believe her, she didn’t even believe her, but rather than push the issue he pulls away even more, hands on her shoulders now.

He squeezes them gently. “Well, if you need anything just yell yeah?” Her lips twitch, recalling memories of all but kicking the door down and throwing herself at Matthew, demanding that he let her stay until she felt better. Tucked under the covers with their foreheads lightly brushing and hands tangled together nothing could touch them in those quiet moments. They’re older now, a lot’s changed between them, but Amelia knows deep down that if she asked there’d be no hesitation.

Which makes it all that much worse.

She nods slightly and then Matthew is leaving, lifting himself off her bed and walking towards her door. He pauses at the doorway, looks back for a moment, and then he’s gone with the door clicking shut quietly behind him. She waits another minute for the muted sound of his own door opening and closing before she curls in on herself, knees pressed up against her chest with her arms wrapped around and her face buried. She takes a shuddering breath and feels her pajama bottoms growing wet.

Matthew is her brother. Her twin in fact. They’ve been together since the womb, she knows him inside and out. He’s sweet and good natured and indescribably gentle towards his loved ones. He smells like fresh ice and the windswept mountains he loved to hike. He’s always been there with a shoulder to cry on, and three years ago if anyone had asked Amelia would have claimed that Matthew was the only one she’d ever need.

But that’s not true anymore is it?

Now all she wants are barely-there-smiles and freckles that frame meadow green eyes. Pale gold hair as wild and untamed as his passion for life. Lithe fingers that wind absently through her hair and bell-chime laughter. The smell of ink and roses and books beneath her fingers and the taste of tea on her tongue. Hours spent dosing, head nestled comfortably in a lap, listening as Shakespeare and Dickens and Austen are brought to life by a lilting accent. Nights spent curled in arms that make her feel safe, make her think home.

She wants it.

She wants it back so badly it’s hard to breathe.

But she can’t have it. What she wants is an ocean away, 4,255 miles separating them, and she can’t change that. They text and call and video chat but it’s not the same. It can’t replace the empty space in the bed beside her. It can’t fill the ache in her heart.

The game killed thousands and thousands of people. It destroyed families and broke people in ways Amelia hadn't even known were possible. She'd lost so many people close to her that it had taken her almost two months to find all of their graves and say her final goodbyes. Yet she had never felt more powerful, felt more  _alive_ than when she had been trapped in there. And she had had  _him_. 

And now that she's awake? Who is she? What does she have now? 

_“What’s wrong then?”_

“I woke up,” she sobs into her knees.

_I woke up and remembered this world is real._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/Kudos/Shares are appreciated.
> 
> Just so everyone's clear Albion = Arthur. His name was never directly stated in the story but I figured it was hinted enough as it was anyways.
> 
> Probably going to continue on with this series with a few more one-shots, maaayyybbbee a multichapter fic if I can work up the energy. 
> 
> Until next time!


End file.
